The last time we checked in with the Brigade — that GamerGate-loving, feminist-hating gang of mostly lady YouTube blabbers — they had filed some sort of legal document charging the people in charge of the Calgary Expo with some kind of bad wrongness for tossing them out of the aforementioned Calgary Expo back in April.

They also charged The Mary Sue, a website in the United States that actually has no power over the staff of any expos in Calgary or indeed anywhere else in Canada, with somehow contributing to or causing the expulsion.

The Mary Sue’s lawyer begins by pointing out that they are — ahem! — headquartered in New York, which is pretty clearly not located in Alberta, Canada, where the lawsuit was filed. (I am reliably informed that Canada is actually a whole other country from us.)

Then The Mary Sue’s lawyer gently reminded the court — and, more to the point, the Honey Badgers — that TIME MOVES FORWARD, not backwards, and that an article that appeared after the Honey Badgers were tossed from the Expo could not have caused them to be tossed from the Expo.

In regard to breach of contract, this claim is not just unfounded, but it is simply impossible based on the timeline of events. The Mary Sue could not have induced the Calgary Expo (“the Expo”) to evict Plaintiff because the aforementioned article was published after Plaintiff’s eviction.

Yep. Apparently the Honey Badger’s fancy disbarred lawyer got the dates mixed up. But hey, the law isn’t about these little details.

There’s more to The Mary Sue’s response, but that’s pretty much the best bit, in this Time-Space continuum at least.

Yesterday, Hannah Wallen of the Honey Badgers — she’s the one who isn’t Karen Straughan or Alison Tieman — posted their official response to the Mary Sue’s letter. It did not mention what we can only call the Honey Badger Time Paradox, but instead tried to distract readers with some new charges against the dastardly Mary Sue.

Mary Sue claims a lack of involvement in Calgary Expo’s choice to expel the Honey Badgers from the event. However, in response to questions on twitter following our expulsion, the expo’s staff referenced The Mary Sue’s article about the event.

Ok, but the Mary Sue article was published after the expulsion, so it could not have caused the expulsion.

The Mary Sue’s prior and existing relationship with Calgary Expo is further demonstrated by an April 15th article promoting the Mary Sue sponsored cosplay contest which was to take place at the event.

Ok, but the Mary Sue article was published after the expulsion, so it could not have caused the expulsion.

Mary Sue weekend editor Sam Maggs was the first person to respond to Britany le Blanc’s first tweet objecting to “MRAs in the audience” at the women into comics panel.

Ok, but the Mary Sue article was published after the expulsion, so it could not have caused the expulsion.

Sorry, Ms. Wallen, but your little sleight of hand is no more effective than this dude’s not-quite-flawless disappearing act.

Just a reminder: the Honey Badgers raised more than $30,000 to cover the legal costs of their patently ludicrous lawsuit.

In my last post I noted that

MRAs and other antifeminists … have wasted literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on causes and projects and people that have pissed away their money without accomplishing anything of value … .

This would be one of those causes.

If you’ve got money burning a hole in your wallet, here’s a much better option:

Maybe they’ll ask for more donations so they can purchase/build an effective time machine. I mean this is definitely a lead up to asking for more donations. They’ll need to hire a disbarred American lawyer so they can file a lawsuit in New York.

Somebody explain to me who the Honey Badgers are. I’m confused. What do they actually do? Are they religious? Why are a bunch of women trying to defend an anti-woman organization?

Now, I know we don’t bring up appearances on this site but just this once I must make an exception. Let’s just say they’re not exactly the Swedish Bikini Team (there – said it). So why are they supporting an organization that expects all women to be perfect 10s, barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, all while being traditional housewives who bring lots of white children to the world and go to church?

I read one article on ROK which said male feminists were like black men in the KKK. I think that description describes the Honey Badgers better.

Somebody enlighten me please. I don’t think I could read any of their material without my head exploding.

So I guess that disbarred lawyer just isn’t working out all that well for them, eh?

In the meantime, said disbarred lawyer is laughing all the way to the bank with the money he’s making off the donations of MRAs desperate for “”””justice”””” and “”””ethics in gaming journalism”””” while at the same time committing legal malpractice. Or he would, if he were a member of the Bar.

As it stands, I can’t tell if he’s engaging in unauthorized practice of the law or just a genius at diverting currency from hate groups. Either way, where is my popcorn?

One more thing to add to the ever growing list of things that oppress men. Time. Time is misandry. These Honey Badgers are just nobly trying to be allies to men in the struggle against time, which I should also note, cruelly turns young hb10s into old hags who’ve hit the wall.

Owen,
Basically the Honey Badgers are trying to be the cool girls. The special snowflakes who are willing to put up with misogyny. They think it will insulate them from being the target of misogynists themselves. But it doesn’t work. Inevitably they step out of line and the MRAs will turn on them.

We’d have to summon Alan to be sure, but I think you have to actually be a lawyer, or at least represent yourself as one, to be committing any sort of legal malpractice or unauthorized practice of law.

I don’t think you should’ve brought it (looks) up even once. But the Honey Badger Brigade is a group of women and men associated with AVfM. Even though they are, according to their website, pretty much 50% men and 50% women, they’ve come to be known as a feMRA group. What do they do? Same as AVfM: post very long youtube videos and bother people on Twitter.

I am veeeeeery curious, what do the HBB backers have to say about all this. Are they on board or are they getting a lil’ buyers remorse?

Ok, so I went and satisfied my curiosity by reading the comments. Seems like the general consensus is “MUHAHAHA, OH WE SURE HAVE THEM ON THE ROPES THIS TIME”. So apparently not only are they on board, they actually think HBB have a chance of winning. Oh this is too great, I really hope this ends up in court.

I’ve collected a few of the most hilarious responses:

It’s good to see you’re not wasting all the money people donated for your legal fund!

Anyone wanna figure out if that one is sarcastic? I honestly can’t even tell.

I wonder how large the Mary Sue’s legal budget is, I guessing like most online publications they are most likely already operating on a knife’s edge financially, every time they have to make a new legal filing it must cut right into the years xmas bonuses. mawhahahahahaha…

Oh no! Anything but the Christmas bonuses!

I can’t wait for the day when a lawyer tries to prove a hashtag abuses women in real life. Supporters of Gamergate would be delighted to have their day in court to expose the wild exaggerations and lies of the media.

Why yes, gamergate, i recommend you bring your army of flying monkeys to the courtroom and enjoy the show.

You know what? The Mary Sue going to have to prove that shit in a court of law. Their lies about you and gamergate aren’t going to hold up and it’ll be on public record.

NO U!

Not sure if it’s relevant, but are they trying to use the time zone difference to buy themselves a few hours in order to claim they couldn’t have had influence?

Temporal paradoxes can apparently be explained away because Timezones!

TRIGGER WARNING on the next few for… bizarre discussion of rape jokes… I think?

“HBB also included paraphernalia in their booth that alluded to rape jokes”

I look forward to seeing a lawyer trying to explain Piccolo Dick to a judge.

Wat…

Best part? Piccolo Dick is in no way a rape meme/joke. I am not a DB fan / watcher, but the TL;DR is that the guy who’s currently being penetrated is more powerful than the other. Additionally, the binding rings that were present on the submissive can only be controlled by the submissive.

dafuq…

Yep, I know.

Now I’m also looking forward to seeing HBB’s lawyer presenting the counter argument to Piccolo Dick.

“Your honor, even though this animation depicts the character Vegeta being anally penetrated by the character Piccolo while restrained with energy rings, in Dragon Ball Z canon only Vegeta is capable of controlling such energy rings, furthermore, at the point in the series where Vegeta is able to use these energy rings, he far surpasses Piccolo in power level, to the point it would be impossible for Piccolo to restrain Vegeta in any way, in fact, the difference is so big Vegeta would be able to crush Piccolo’s penis with his superhuman buttocks. Clearly, this image depicts a consensual act of BDSM. I rest my case.”

Magnesium
As a Christian myself, There is so much I want to say and do to that no good christian but I don’t want to get banned I wish I can meet him and pray for those women and children that’s all I’m going to say. it makes me tremoudously sad to see people like this. It makes me want to open my own shelters.

Owen
I believe like some commenters here said they are a group of women who only joined the misognists cause they can be safe but one wrong move will be hell for them. I also think that some of them including JB and Erin are just in it for the money and power. All they have to do is drop a little bit of oil onto the fire and watch it burn and cha Ching they’re not only safe but rich and have control too. They really think that the men and boys there (in general) are illogical and easy so they just use them probably mocking them afterwards too. Some of them also have some bigotry against other minorities like poc and gay people so they joined a group to shut down and derail their activism, etc. so they really don’t care about anyone but the themselves.

I do have some sympathy for one her name is Karen (yeah you can all throw up now) she said the only reason she dresses and acts like a boy is because she felt like no matter what she does she just feels ugly and she felt like she didn’t belong with the girls because they were pretty and popular so she just hung out with the guys. I’m not excusing her actions whatsoever I just think it’s sad.
There is a black woman but I don’t know her very well I don’t even know her name.

I do have sympathy and I understand for anyone who would want to join the mrm (men, men of color, etc) but they are never going to get any help instead those kinds of places are just going to suck the life out of them and then will be tossed aside like trash. Only 7 out of 8 MRAs I know have turned away from the mrm (a voice for men) for how evil they are. They even used their abuse and rape as weapons against feminists and women and even been used against themselves and been called “beta” “mangina” etc so most of them left to become feminists.

So MRAs it is you and people like you is what making people become feminists

It’s there any chance that they saw the Mary Sue logo (a woman) and the Expo logo (also a woman – in a cowboy hat, natch), got them confused, and the rest has all been an attempt to save face?

Seems unlikely considering there are a bunch of Albertans in the HBBs. Of course it is still possible, since they may not be able to see through their colons well enough to identify any distinguishing characteristics of the outside world

Oh, Lionel Hutz! One of my favourite characters. His scenes are always brilliant.

@ Moocow

That time zone thing is hilarious! People really can’t be that hilariously ignorant, can they? – oh wait, they are MRAs. Of course they can.

I wonder how large the Mary Sue’s legal budget is, I guessing like most online publications they are most likely already operating on a knife’s edge financially, every time they have to make a new legal filing it must cut right into the years xmas bonuses. mawhahahahahaha…

That’s part of what separates MRAs from real activists. The most terrifying thing for MRAs- no Christmas bonus. (and you just know this person’s projecting their own fears) The most terrifying thing to real activists? Not being able to spend resources on helping others.

Why yes, gamergate, i recommend you bring your army of flying monkeys to the courtroom and enjoy the show.

They couldn’t create flying monkeys! They don’t know what a soul is meant to be in the first place! Although they do wish to manipulate people… (Sorry, Wicked reference- I imagine only a few will know what I’m banging on about.)

@ David Futrelle

My personal favourite part of the article,

Ok, but the Mary Sue article was published after the expulsion, so it could not have caused the expulsion.

repeated. I laughed heartily.

Also, I too find it hilarious they actually think they have a chance of winning!

(Oh, and the four videos I got for the end of dhag85’s were Lionel Hutz, Bad Court Thingy, Best of Lionel Hutz, and… Lego Dimensions Character Reactions to Vehicles, with Shaggy Rogers, an Indominus Rex and a Tardis within. I know that’s based on my video history, but it was such a surreal picture to see I needed to share it!)

Ah, great coincidence then!
(CoFD is a Doctor Who parody episode with Rowan Atkinson (who soon regenerates into Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Richard E Grant and Joanna Lumley. ‘I’ll explain later’ is a running joke in it. I just saw time travel, and the line, I just wondered. Just to inform!)

The HBB writes articles for AVFM, they went to the 2014 conference hosted by AVFM and at least one of them gave a presentation (Karen Straughan), AVFM links and/or hosts their videos, they promote AVFM, and they’re practically sleeping together.

If Sage Gerard is still claiming to be a Honey Badger, he’s listed right on the AVFM masthead as are Karen Straughan and Alison Tieman. Nice try; no cigar.

the honey badgers are NOT part of AVFM. They are bloody bugger all to do with AVFM. They address that lie in this video.

Not going to watch the video because I don’t want YouTube recommending me anti-feminist videos for the next several weeks, but what is it with different anti-feminist sub groups so vigorously denying any association with other anti-feminist sub groups? You all have the same views and you often praise each other. Until someone outside the manosphere mixes the groups up and it’s all pearl clutching and denial.

I think y’all are overthinking it when it comes to the HBB and why they are anti-feminists. They don’t at all seem to be trying to shield themselves against MRA horribleness with some kind of weird defense mechanism. Rather, they give every indication that they think they are different than (better than) feminist women. They really seem to think that when MRAs say that women are moneygrubbing gendered slurs, they are themselves exempted from that description. They seem to genuinely have this “just one of the guys” thing going on, where they don’t think of themselves as being in the same category as other women.

Friction in this kind of dynamic is inevitable. It is only a matter of time before some male-identifying MRA forgets that “present company is excepted, of course,” at which point the female-identifying MRA has a choice to either just absorb the misogynist insult, or object and risk being labeled a gendered-slur herself for daring to say something that isn’t in total agreement with him. It’s a nasty situation to be in, and one that occurs over and over as long as the “I’m not like those other [members of my marginalized group]” sticks around, and it couldn’t possibly happen to a more deserving group than the HBB.

So I’ve been sitting here for a few minutes musing over this…the Honey Badger Brigade* makes stuff up to the point that you need time travel to explain it and they get $30,000 to clean up their mess. YET, the directors of the movie “Primer”–which is just a great movie about time travel–were able to slap together a convincing, decent time travel story for $7,000. Now, I’m assuming those are both USD figures. Maybe I’m wrong that the HBB raised $30,000 Canadian dollars, but even with differences in exchange rates, that puts Primer at a much lower cost to make an actual time travel movie vs. a nonsensical time travel trainwreck of a lawsuit.

Maybe we can get some mangaku to make a sequel to “The Girl Who Leaped through Time” about the group of angry, anti-feminist badger-people who follow her through her various time leaps. Might be worth a giggle. 😉

* Has anyone analyzed their protofascist name? Brigades and Youth Groups smack of Fascism/Totalism to me. Creeps me out, but par for the course, I suppose as many of the things they spout line up pretty well with some of Umberto Eco’s criteria for defining fascism.

And also, “Badger” I assume was chosen for its verbal function, not as a noun: i.e. they show up and badger and harass feminists wherever and whenever they can. Why would you put that in your name? That’s such a bullheaded thing to do. Yuck!

@DS, while I don’t doubt that the HBB does indeed enjoy badgering feminists at any opportunity, I’m fairly certain that the “Honey Badger” label is a reference to the fairly popular meme that honey badgers are relatively fearless and “don’t give a shit.”

nparker — try checking a small diner in Nevada, I think there might be a spare TARDIS over there.

Semi on topic — orange tango drinker’s video is an hour and 45 minutes long. Why can’t MRAs ever be concise? Or pithy. I like pithy, it’s a nice word. And apparently my iOS dictionary is set to French currently, odd considering I’m definitely using the English keyboard!

We Hunted the Mammoth tracks and mocks the white male rage underlying the rise of Trump and Trumpism. This blog is NOT a safe space; given the subject matter -- misogyny and hate -- there's really no way it could be.